Thursday, April 25, 2013

This carving was created from the base of an elk antler. You'll see how some of the original roughness around the circumference was retained; in other places it was duplicated by carved work. The tiny lotus blossom petal is carved from pink pearl shell, and pegged into place. This netsuke measures 4cm across.
Antler is a wonderfully suggestive material; I have several projects on the workbench right now that exploit its various qualities. With this piece, the spongy core, and rough edge suggested exploring the symbolism of the lotus.

I've got a number of finished piece that have been awaiting photography, but I had a technical hitch with my camera and finally got that resolved this week. Just in time too! I'm going to be having a very busy month or two coming up. First off- my local town of Bloomington, Indiana is hosting an Open Studios event with something like 40 artists participating. I'm sharing an exhibit space with six others at a local venue. Everything you need to know about the event this coming weekend can be found here: Bloomington Open Studios Tour. After that, I'm off to London for a week for the International Netsuke Society Convention to meet up with old friends and new, attend some lectures, and hopefully sell some artwork. Finally- in June I'll be in Japan for a couple of weeks touring with my wife, seeing friends, and getting some artistic inspiration.

So, here's the first of a couple of new items. It's carved from warthog tusk, with inlaid accents in mother of pearl. It measures about 9cm in length.

The work fits in nicely with an on-going look into flower blooms for subject matter, as well as exploring the carving possibilities of a new material.